In fact, it’s so bad that in many b2b companies general management, let alone the employees who must deliver the brand, think that branding is little more than logos, business cards and fonts.

What Is Branding, Really

Let’s make it simple for a change. Branding is just a fancy term for the process of understanding what your customers care about most when they buy, and aligning your actions and communications with those customer values that make you unique.

When done well, this relatively simple process can create tremendous financial value by providing focus and consistency to all a company’s activities.

The Value Is Inside Your Customers’ Heads

For example, early on Starbucks discovered that a sense of community was a highly valued part of buying and drinking coffee. So they built their brand around a third place in people’s lives. A place of community between home and work.

And they created a consistent, unique coffee culture around it. Complete with its own language, appearance and experience.

Ka-ching

Despite the fact that I personally want to administer a swift smack in the head to anyone who has to use seven adjectives to order a cup of coffee, it is this Starbuck “brand” that defines the company’s success:

• It drives product sales.

• It defines and directs a consistent experience with the company and its representatives that resonate with customers.

• It reduces the company’s cost of sales by streamlining the marketing, communications, and purchase process.

• It enables Starbucks to get a premium price for its goods.

If you’d like to see how the principles behind a value-based branding approach like that play out in detail for business brands, you should check out BrandWidth, a free eBook from Mobium.

From Their Heads to Your Bottom

So what’s the bottom line of all this effort for Starbucks and other companies who understand what brands really are about?

• 21 percent of the total value of The Starbucks Coffee Company, including all its facilities and assets, is directly related to the brand they built.

GORDON HOCHHALTER is Partner, Creativitystrategyconnectivity at Mobium, the unconventional transformative b2b branding firm. He has won more than 450 creative awards equally divided among print, broadcast and online. His work can be found in The Library of Congress, The AIGA Design Archives, and The University of Chicago Library. Check out his blog at http://www.wasiswillbe.com, follow his tweets at http://www.twitter/gordonhochhalte or email him at ghochhalter@mobiumllc.com. But only if you are living a life of complete and utter boredom and lonely solitude. Otherwise you can make much better use of your time.

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